So I was out to lunch (har har) with a couple of friends this afternoon and as Patrick and I were headed in the same direction on our way back to work we stopped at the Bay-Bloor Indigo and made a bee-line for the SF section.

After several frantic moments of searching (me KNOWING that they had eight copies in stock) we located UNDER COVER OF DARKNESS faced out in the fantasy section (not the sci-fi section where I thought it might be*) and Patrick bought a copy–with no prompting from me, I might add.

Then he asked me to sign it for him.

Me. Sign a story of mine. In a book you can buy in the store. It was an amazing moment.

Now I’ve mentioned Patrick before–he’s one of the world’s future foremost Anglo-Saxonists. We know each other from our undergrads in Kingston, and when we both moved to Toronto to pursue Masters degrees we shared an apartment for three years, give or take. He’s a dear friend, afflicted with much the same oddity as myself, and we get along great.

So I was very pleased that my first-ever book signing was for him, at his request. I hope there will be many more stories to sign in the years to come.

– S.

*NB: I’m actually really glad its in the fantasy section and not sci-fi. While I tend to write mostly SF, it’s well known that fantasy sells better–primarily because more women buy books than do men, and more women read fantasy than read SF. Weird, perhaps, but just how it breaks out. So hopefully by being in the fantasy section it will help sales. And truth be told, I think most of the stories in the collection can be described as fantasy rather than SF–of the ones I’ve read so far only my story ‘Borrowed Time’ and Larry Niven’s ‘The Gatherers Guild’ can be termed SF…and even then, mine’s ‘soft’ SF, not ‘hard’…but LARRY NIVEN!!!